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Amanda Somerville
Amanda Somerville (born March 7, 1979) is an American singer-songwriter and vocal coach, known primarily for her work with many European symphonic metal bands. Her voice has an extreme range from tenor to soprano, however she has said herself that her tessitura is in the alto range. Biography Personal life Somerville was born in Flushing, Michigan, attended Flushing Senior High School, graduating a full year early and won a scholarship for graduating with high honors to the University of Michigan in Flint, Michigan, where she majored in psychology. Somerville moved to Wolfsburg, Germany in 1999 where she's resided, working mainly in Germany and the Netherlands. Music career Somerville has written and recorded with bands such as After Forever, Edguy, Kamelot, Epica, Avantasia, and has produced two solo albums. Her solo releases to date are primarily soft and elegant pop rock with some hard rock, folk and soul music influences. Amanda herself wrote and contributed instrumentally to all of the songs on her solo albums with only one exception being "Out" from the album Windows (written by Sascha Paeth). She collaborated with several of these metal bands alongside producers Sascha Paeth and Michael Rodenberg, which took her to collaborate with multi-instrumentalist Robert Hunecke-Rizzo co-writing the rock opera Aina. Later she made a similar collaboration with guitarist Sander Gommans (After Forever), providing vocals and lyrical concept for the project HDK. In 2008, she toured America with Dutch heavy metal band Epica, while regular vocalist Simone Simons recovered from a staph infection. In 2010, she collaborated with Michael Kiske (ex-Helloween singer) on a musical project entitled Kiske/Somerville. The band is a melodic metal act put together by Frontiers Records, as similar project as Allen/Lande. Songwriting and producing was made by Primal Fear bassist Mat Sinner with collaboration by guitarist Magnus Karlsson (Allen/Lande, also from Primal Fear), Sander Gommans, Jimmy Kresic and Amanda herself. Their first single, Silence was released on August 20. Their self-titled album was released on 24 September 2010 by Frontiers Records, after the single accompanied by a music video for Silence. A music video was also made for the song "If I Had One Wish." Somerville contributed creatively to the album by writing 3 songs featured on the album: "A Thousand Suns," "Arise" and "Set Afire," all co-written with Sander Gommans. Amanda was also one of the live guest vocalists for Tobias Sammet's metal opera Avantasia three world tours in 2008, 2010 and 2013. Her role onstage was singing backing vocals during the whole setlist and performaing lead vocals for the songs "Farewell," "Sleepwalking," "The Wicked Symphony," "Lost In Space" and "Sign Of The Cross." In 2011, Amanda finally released her first heavy metal-oriented project called Trillium with the record company Frontiers Records. The project has contributions by Sascha Paeth, Michael Rodenberg, Sander Gommans and a guest appearance of Jørn Lande on a duet vocal track with Amanda. Discography Solo *''In the Beginning there was...'' (2000) *''Blue Nothing'' (EP, 2000) *''Never Alone'' (EP, 2003) *''Windows'' (2009) Aina *''Days of Rising Doom'' (2003) HDK *''System Overload'' (2008) *''Serenades of the Netherworld'' (2014) Kiske/Somerville *''Kiske/Somerville'' (2010) Trillium *''Alloy'' (2011) Other projects *After Forever – Invisible Circles (2004), Remagine (2005), After Forever (2007); vocal coach, backing/choir vocals, producer *Andre Matos – Time to Be Free (2007), Mentalize (2009); choir/backing vocals and lyrical editor *Asrai – Touch in the Dark (2004): lyrical editor *Edguy – Hellfire Club (2004), Rocket Ride (2006); backing vocals, lyrical editor *Epica – The Phantom Agony (2003), We Will Take You with Us (2004), Consign to Oblivion (2005), The Road to Paradiso (2006), The Divine Conspiracy (2007), live session singer for USA Canada tour (2008), Design Your Universe (2009); vocal coach, backing/choir vocals, co-writer, producer, Requiem for the Indifferent (2012) *Kamelot – The Black Halo (2005), Silverthorn (2012); choir vocals *Luca Turilli – Prophet of the Last Eclipse (2002); choir vocals *Mob Rules – Ethnolution A.D. (2002); choir vocals *Shaman – Ritual (2002), Reason (2005); backing vocals, lyrical editor *Virgo – Virgo (2001); vocalist, lyrical editor References Notes * External links * * * * *